[The Networked Society] Retooling Shirky's blog types

[sofiaviolet]

[Originally posted at The Networked Society]

In Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality, Shirky defines three basic kinds of blogs: the mainstreamed-media blog (too big for its writer/s to reply to comments etc.), "Blogging Classic" (outward-facing blog with a small enough readership that the writer/s can be involved with them), and journaling. (For comparison, Dreamwidth's Design Personas: Betty Broadcast and Ivy Inward on a journal site versus the first and last of Shirky's blog types.)

I'm not personally interested in where the tipping point between Blogging Classic and mainstreamed-media lies. What I do care about is how popular a journal can get before its writer can no longer interact significantly with readers. I'd argue that there are two basic ways of managing a journal (as opposed to a blog): a semi-broadcast model and a more reciprocal model (for more popular and less popular journals, respectively). I'll name them along the lines of the Design Personas.

Sandy (Semi-broadcast): Sandy has more readers than she can fully engage with. She has a group of friends with whom she interacts by reading their entries, replying to their comments sooner and more fully than others, and allowing them to read locked entries in her journal. Sandy tends to have far more inbound relationships (another user lists her as a friend, subscribes to her, and/or grants her access) than outbound relationships, and she probably has relatively few outbound-only relationships.

Rita (Reciprocal): Rita is able to be friends with all or most of her readers. The volume of entries and comments posted by Rita's social group fits within the time Rita can devote to this form of interaction. She tends to have a relatively even number of inbound and outbound relationships, and many of them are mutual.

So what is the tipping point between Sandy and Rita? For what it's worth, I currently subscribe to about 240 journals and have about 250 subscribers (although there are some inactive accounts in there, and about 30% of those relationships are non-mutual) and would consider myself a Rita because I don't feel that I have more other-people's-content than time.

Comments

[isis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

I haven't counted up the number of journals I actively engage with but I suspect it's around the 150 mark. An interesting side question is - if you have separate personas with only modestly overlapping audience, do they accrue separately to the limit?

(I think that I would have to add my LJ and DW together to make my "fandom interactions" but that my Facebook crowd is a separate set of interactions and therefore doesn't affect that number, even though perhaps a dozen people both read one of my fandom journals and are my FB friends.)

[cleverthylacine]

I know I used to have the problem where I couldn't possibly actually read all the journals I was subscribed to and I felt bad because people who were actually my friends were upset that I'd missed things.

(At one point in time, I would check specific journals of non-LW friends, and then read the friends list of LW OOC, because like 75% of the people I actually cared about were on it.)

I tend to have a lot of one-way connections in both directions, though--there are people who read me, even though I broadcast a lot less than I used to, who are interested in my thoughts about shows, but not particularly in my celiac disease or my batshite downstairs neighbour or my job searches, and there are people I read, because they are authors I admire. (This was one of the things they used to make fun of me for on FW--the idea that I must be a loser because not everyone friends me back, when in fact I had friended a lot of broadcasters on LJ. I am grateful that Nnedi Okorafor friended me back, but unsurprised that Pat Cadigan and Elizabeth Bear haven't; it doesn't make me feel like a loser that someone I friended because I basically am their fangirl doesn't have time to care about all their fans?)

Anyhow. Yeah.

I want to broadcast again, now that people on the internet seem to be growing up a little and trolling is treated more as violent behaviour and less as free speech--I particularly liked what Liss said on Shakesville, which I read, about how trolls exhibit the attitudes of the rape culture, by not respecting people's boundaries and complaining when they're not allowed in and acting like you defending your own boundaries is a violation of THEIR rights. But I'm not sure I'm ready yet.

[isis]

Yes, it's definitely possible to have one-way relationships in both directions simultaneously, and to have one-way relationships with some people and two-way with others in the same domain. For example, although she's not on my flist (nor, obviously, vice versa) I have seen Elizabeth Bear's comments on certain journals on my flist, so she's interacting with some and broadcasting to others.

And of course simply having the relationship available doesn't mean it's actually there; I endeavor to comment on flist posts which interest me, and thus build a relationship, but often people read each others' posts and never comment, and so I don't think they fall into each others' "Dunbar circles", so to speak - they don't take up space in each others' mental network, or perhaps they take up less space than, say, someone they regularly comment to and receive comments from.

[sofiaviolet]

I would say that reading a person's entries is what gets them on my mental network. Sustained commenting from them to me might do the same, but I don't recall that happening very much, and a single random comment is unlikely to have that effect unless the person is popping up a lot in other people's journals as well.

The problem with this, of course, is that I have to remind myself that these people, about whom I may know quite a bit because I've been absorbing what they post, have no fucking clue who I am or why they should care. It's hard to remember that when you feel like you know them.

[sofiaviolet]

I've been fortunate enough to have plenty of free time all the time, pretty much, and since moving most of my interactions to Dreamwidth, unsubscribing is a lot less fraught. (I was never very good at filters, though I tried desperately to make them work on LJ.)

I love that Shakesville post. It's such a helpful connection to draw.

[fastfwd]

Oops. Sorry. I usually friend back anyone who friends me but I've been a bit distracted lately.

[sofiaviolet]

Hm, I've noticed that all my interactions (online and off) seem to draw from the same pool of available resources. So even though there's very little overlap between Facebook-people and Dreamwidth-people, say, I can't manage a full complement of strong social connections on either site. The number of people whose stuff I regularly comment on is much lower than the number of people whose stuff I consume.

[stultiloquentia]

I just wanted to say this is neat, and I'm thinking about it, even if my head's too fuzzy to add anything today. Thanks.

[sofiaviolet]

You're welcome! I knew it would be a good idea to crosspost from the class blog. :)